The Ringer NBA Show - Celtics Can’t Take the Heat in Eastern Conference Finals Game 2 Loss | The Mismatch

Episode Date: September 18, 2020

The Heat beat the Celtics to go up 2-0 in the Eastern Conference finals, and Chris and Kevin got together after the game to talk about the Celtics’ meltdown in the face of Miami’s zone defense (0:40), the matchup between the Lakers and Nuggets (39:26), and what moves the Clippers might make in the offseason (50:58). Hosts: Chris Vernon and Kevin O’Connor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Pick up a pack or have it delivered today and drink responsibly. Welcome to The Ringer NBA show. I'm Chris Vernon. And joining me as he does every Friday from the Ringer.com is Kevin O'Connor, aka Kevin O'Bomber, Kevin O'Connor, Kevin O'Connor, Kevin O'Conflict, Kevin O'Candyland, Kevin. Vernal, looks like you have a fresh haircut. Yeah, I chopped off all my hair. I did. I was tired of it.

I was tired of styling it. As you have grown your hair and your beard, I've just, I had enough, Kevin. I couldn't style it any longer. And I said, just cut it all. all off. We just watched game two of the Boston Celtics and the Miami Heat. And as we're recording this on Thursday night upon just watching that game, there are a bunch of stories. So we'll start from the back about a locker room that is in disarray, I think, would be a nice term to put it. Gary Washburn, who is there, who covers the team for the Boston Globe, wrote the

following. Marcus Smart is screaming in the Celtics locker room. and there is a bunch of arguing going on. Smart comes out and says, y'all on that bullshit. Team is imploding. Smart is in the bathroom and they're still screaming coming from the locker room. He wasn't the only one yelling.

There were definitely items thrown and a lot of yelling. Argument is continuing. Locker rooms still closed. I've been outside a bunch of locker rooms in my days. This was as raucous as I've ever heard. And obviously at the time of us recording, the locker room isn't open yet.

So we'll see if they try to put. it away, but Malika Andrews also reporting same stuff going on. They all obviously saw Marcus Smart. And so this is a little different situation than, well, honestly, every loss that we have heard about that has taken place this year, you know, whether it be in the regular season of the playoffs. And I think it speaks to the magnitude of this loss for the Boston Celtics who were in a really good spot in this very game.

and scored 60 points in the first half of this game. And then came apart at the seams and the heat just took it away. And now they're two games away from the NBA finals. I mean, we obviously don't know what exactly Markers Smart is yelling about. But I'm sure we can put, you know, the pieces together and assume the hardest working player on the Celtics, you know, one of the players who has the best winning attitudes in the entire league who always plays like his every game like it's his, last game, just finished a game in which there is a porous effort from his teammates in terms of effort levels, in terms of boxing out, in terms of defensive rotations in court, terms of decision making on the offensive end of the floor across the board, especially in the third

quarter. But really, the entire game, even when they were up, a lot of that was due to hot shooting, I felt. Boston had a lot of poor mistakes in the first quarter that they did make up in the second, but hot shooting is why they had the lead. This was a bad effort from the Celtics from the start to finish of the game. Miami just completely outplayed them, completely outplayed them. And for Marcus Smart, maybe this is his way of just maybe giving the rest of the team a complete kick in the ass, which clearly they need. I would say only Marker Smart and Jalen Brown were really the guys who brought it in game two tonight.

And being down 2-0, I mean, damn, dude, how are you going to come back against this tough heat team? You thought it was a whole game thing. Because I thought they were in good shape in the first half. I mean, look, I didn't mark. They were shooting over 60%. I know. Well, and I marked in my notes as I was watching that game. I marked, especially at the end of that first half, you had, you know, now in the NBA,

almost every team is guarding you the same way, which is to run you off the three point line and attempt to contest you at the rim. They want you playing mid-range basketball. And so what happens? when you find the team that starts knocking down all the mid-range shots. And I had marked down, they were, they were like 100% on these mid-range shots there for a stretch. I mean, Campbell Walker's hitting step-backs.

I mean, the whole dreaded long twos, they were making them. They were making them. And that's kind of the soft spot. Hot shooting. And, you know, you chronicled in your video this week about the Miami zone. And this is clearly going to be a huge topic because, there's a lot of people that are going to look at this game. And Jeff Van Gundy even said it on the broadcast.

They get a lot of credit for dropping into that thing. And they, the Celtics oddly looked flummoxed again. It's not like they don't know that it can be brought out, right, at this moment. You know, for a good portion of that second half, they were stuck on, I mean, they were scoring like 25, 30, then 35 points. And this is a team that obviously had scored 60 in the first half, but that zone that you had talked about, they didn't play it in the first two rounds. And I'm sure some of that, probably most of it, is opponent.

You're not going to get in a zone against, you know, Milwaukee who can shoot you out of it and has Janus, you know, trying to get in open spaces in that zone. But you also have a situation where they might have not. wanted to show a lot of it until they got to this time. I think they were saving it. I really do. Before the playoffs began during the seating games, when I was doing my power rankings, I did a little blurb about Miami's zone.

And I asked Eric Spolstra for that article, you know, just a basic general question about like the role of zone, the value of zone. And his answer was like a basic coach answer, like kind of sidswiping it just like, well, the reason why we run zone is because our man defense hasn't been great.

but he said, I feel like Zone isn't as valuable anymore because more teams are running it and offenses have counterattacks to beat it. And, you know, at the time I heard that answer, I'm like, you know, just a real general answer. You know, of course he's not going to say we do it because it flummoxes the offense because it throws them off rhythm. But I do think the fact they made a decision, Miami used Zone this season for 802 possessions, number one in the NBA. Number one, two seasons ago, every team, all 30 teams only use at 718 total possessions, just to put it into perspective. The heat used more zone than every team did two years ago. And then they decided to do it zero times in the first two rounds.

That feels like something a team would do when they know they're saving it for a moment that it's going to be necessary. In Boston, like, it's so, I'm really flabbergasted. the Celtics got dominated by the zone against the Raptor scored only 91 points on 117 possessions against Toronto. And they don't seem any more ready to beat the zone right now than they did last round. Everything looks indecisive. They're constantly thinking whenever Miami plays zone. Part of it is the zone is fantastic.

It's so good. It's so great. I mean, when you've got the length that they have and the interchangeability that they have, because Van Gundy pointed out, it's odd. Typically, whenever anybody thinks about your, you know, a natural two-three zone, your two guards are up top. Well, he flips it and he puts the two forwards up top. And so in this game, you saw a lot of Butler and Crowder at the top.

Derek Jones, Jr. Derek Jones, Jr., who is really tough. He's a big piece of the zone. Yes. And it also allows them to play guys like Hero, like Duncan Robinson and the other team can't just target them, right? They're not able to target the player because now, I mean, these coaches are all so good. As soon as you play somebody that has been deemed at one point unplayable,

they just put a target on your back and they run every damn thing at you over and over again. Well, if they're sitting in a zone, and especially if they're like the corner guy in the zone, they're not going to be. and that's what's so odd. It's because they're not able to be targeted. On the other hand, I know Bamadabio is great and nimble and can move from side to side

and cover a lot of ground. You also have to be able to get in those seams and get to the basket. They just shot jumper after jumper after jumper against that zone. Like they never just all of a sudden started going and getting some contact, started getting in those seams.

between the guys. And their zone offense is just so bad, Kav. It really was. It was so bad. The Synergy.com Synergy updated their data from tracking stats with the zone defense and in the two games,

Miami has run according to them 48 zone possessions. And on those possessions, they were allowing only 0.85 points per possession. Wow. And if you extrapolate that to the full regular season, that would rank third. heard in the league, but considering the amount that they're running it, which is, you know,

quite often from the heat right now in the postseason, it is making such a tremendous difference in terms of what Boston is doing on the floor. They completely change their offense and more so than them just changing the plays they run. It just feels like they're indecisive. They're thinking. Like I said, I mean, you alluded to it to like, you alluded to like what Miami's doing. with their effort and, you know, and all that. It's like, but Boston has yet in two rounds yet to be able to figure out any counters at all.

It's really, it's really mind blowing. Well, and how do they not get to something that they love? It just feels like it's all. They don't have anything that they love it feels like. I know, I know, but it's so equal opportunity. Like you saw Miami, what did they get to, Kev, when it mattered most? They got to the Dragett. They got to Droggich and Tice, right?

They're like, we want this. Like if we can, and they all cleared out of the way. And they said, we want Dragachon Tice. Like here, this is the matchup we want at this moment. So at 95 to 95, you know, as bad as Boston had played, they were still getting stops in the fourth quarter. You know, for a long period of time, the heat only had five points. I mean, we're talking more than midway through the fourth.

They only had, I think, like five. So they were, they weren't playing good offensively, but they were getting the stops. So at 95-95, I thought, all right, here's the moment. And I wrote this down because there was three minutes left to go in that game. Like what kind of possessions are these teams going to be getting down the stretch? And I swear on my life, the first one, I'm like, this is where, you know, your team, you've got to treasure the ball every possession from here on out in a tie game with three minutes left matters. The first one I charted was this ridiculous.

Marcus Smart fade away that is contested. Contested shot. And then Dragich goes down. He gets a foul, but it's, I thought it was an offensive foul, but whatever. He drew it against Kemba. And then he hits the two free throws. The rest of their possessions, Kemba missed three, Smart missed three, a turnover that Jimmy Butler got,

a Jalen Brown three, a Jalen Brown three, a Jalen Brown. miss three. That's it. That's the rest of the game for the last three minutes of the game. There was nothing else. It was just like it was, you know, could you make the threes or not, right? I mean, it's unbelievable. It's unbelievable because, I mean, they had been seeing it the whole half. So, so Miami's dominating with the zone right now and Boston's been able to, unable to figure it out. And Gordon Hayward was doubtful before the game. And of course he was out, still hasn't played yet in the postseason. Hayward, I feel like entering the series,

I picked Miami to lose the series in six. They're up to, oh, I'm looking real dumb right now. I feel like I underrated the importance of Gordon Hayward in the series. I think I underrated that. I feel like with Miami, they have so much talent and so much high effort guys who constantly, they're geared, they're wired,

they're wired to play hard this team. And a lot of that comes from Smolstra, that comes from, you know, Eudanus Haslam, that comes from heat culture. But most of all, I think it comes from your best player, Jimmy Butler, being a guy who he can score zero points and still make a winning impact because of the way he plays on defense, because of the way he leads off the bench on the court.

He does everything for you. Scoring is like the cherry on top from him, which he does for you at the end of games. Boston needs to overcome that disparity. Miami's talent and Miami's real heart, their toughness with talent. And Hayward, I think, having that extra ball handler who can create off the dribble,

who can hit shots off the dribble, who can make plays for others, and play good defense, smart defense, Boston needs him. But how can you expect a guy to come back after months away and to come back in the Eastern Conference finals against this heat team and suddenly be like a positive player?

That seems like a lot to ask, isn't it, Chris? It is a lot to ask, but I'll tell you this, he'd help a hell of a lot versus that zone. If there's nothing else, he'd help a hell of a lot against that zone. No, it's a lot to ask. But look, this whole Marcus Smart thing is going to go one or two ways. We know that. But if I'm a Celtics fan, I absolutely love that that happened. That guy, he messed up.

He had a couple bad possessions there at the end of the game. But you can't doubt that he's doing everything he can. to try to win that game. And he looks around and he wants these guys to come along with them. And he obviously is not the guy I want taking the shots that he took in the last three minutes of the game. That being said, hearing those stories of stuff being thrown, him cursing everybody out, him screaming and yelling. You have to have that. You just have to.

And sometimes- So you think it's a good thing that we're hearing about this after the game. Oh, I think it's, yes. Look, let me tell you something. You know who didn't have that? The Clippers. The Clippers. They didn't have it.

They went to the locker room and instead of somebody saying this shit is not happening, they put on, you know, Kauai puts on his new balanced sweatsuit and leaves the arena. And Paul George mopes and he leaves the arena. And Pat Bev, you know, and Montres Harrell starts yelling at Paul George for a minute, I guess according to Chris Haynes. By the way, that play from Harold when he yelled at George not to go on a side ran here. That was just a bad pass. by George. Like,

you should be bad at yourself for that. Here's a thing. Anyway, with Boston. And we've talked about this a lot over the years. You have got to have that happening in your locker room and it not be the

coach's voice. Your coach cannot be the voice. And that is the situation. You know, look, Doc Rivers deserves all of the, all of the criticism that he has gotten. Because in the end,

You're the coach of the team. That's your record. That being said, in retrospect, you look back a lot and you say, when he won big, I promise you, Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce were in that locker room every night if something went wrong. And there was no lack of somebody standing up at that moment and saying, this isn't happening or getting furious or calling guys out even. Like all of that stuff existed.

Guess who else doesn't have that problem? The heat. If things don't go right, you better believe there are guys in that locker room that are dressing you down. And in the absence of the obvious, Marcus Smart is filling that role. And so, yeah, there's some people that are going to roll their eyes at that. But I'm telling you, there's no winning team that doesn't have that. You know who else has it?

The Lakers. Because that shit doesn't go down. You know, if they're down 3-1, and they lose a 19 point lead and a 16 point lead. People can poke holes and LeBron all they want. I guarantee you, you don't want to be in that locker room after that with him. I mean, not to bring up the rockets and start an argument, but it's the same problem with James Harden. The year James Hardin won MVP, and I got a call from a GM who's like, I don't understand

why you and all these writers are voting him as MVP. Or I don't understand why people are voting, you know, Westworth the year before is MVP. He's like, I don't understand it at all. LeBron James is the MVP. You know, you can look at the numbers on the court and you can say some guy might have slightly better numbers. And this is, by the way, not somebody who's connected with LeBron, not like his team's GM or anything.

This is like, you know, another team. And he's like, but LeBron so far exceeds everybody else in the leadership category. And that is what often goes overlooked by media, by fans and sometimes by even people within the league. And, you know, LeBron is one of the best leaders, you know, really of this generation for his teams and something like you said you can poke holes at his tactics that's right but it's necessary it's necessary for kevin garnett to be the guy that he was all those years it's necessary to have jimmy butler be the way he is sometimes it can rub guys off sometimes you need cobi to yell

at his teammates that's what you needed from all these great players that's what sometimes can separate them and boston you know the clippers right now it doesn't feel like either team is having that like mark a smart it's great when it's your best player doing that and not like the fourth best player. But you do need it still nonetheless, because as you said, he's filling the void. Smart is filling it when Tatum's not ready for that may never be. Brown's not ready for that may never be. But Marker Smart is doing it and he needs to.

Well, and it's a tough spot for Kemba. He's the veteran guy and he's the guy. Kim is also a nice guy. I think Kemba's not that type of leader, which is fine. Like, you need nice guys too on your team. But you do need somebody that is. that is dressing everybody down that so it's not just a bunch of a mopers looking around at each other. And, you know, for it, look, and I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I,

Kauai hasn't gotten a pass. I don't want to say that. He's gotten a pass. He has gotten a pass. On this, like they barely, they barely criticize him on that broadcast. It's just the truth. Like, he got a, he got a pass on the broadcast at least. Maybe not from podcast or like TV shows, but on the broadcast, he'd,

get a pass. Well, it's interesting because it's the first time he's played where the level of attention is so much greater, right? Because when you're playing in San Antonio and then you're playing in Toronto, you just don't get the same coverage, especially nationally, that you do when you're playing for the clippers with another superstar and all of the, you know, you're on commercials now and everything else. A superstar, you had seven draft picks traded for and Shagel's Alexander. But we do know this. For as great as he is, that's not him either. It's not, you know.

Kyle Lowry was going to be that guy last year. If somebody needed to stand up and say something, Kyle, so it doesn't always have to be, but you do have to have it. And so. By the way, Nick Nurse was that too. Nick Nurse would poll guys if they made a wrong defensive rotation. Like he had no tolerance for mistakes. And that created a team in which the players began to hold each.

other accountable and but most importantly players held themselves accountable for those mistakes and you know brad steven sometimes i feel like with his system is often so equal opportunity where you see daniel tice empowered to isolate against bam adabio in the third quarter and drive hard to the room against him and throw up a horrific layup attempt you know you see guys empowered to take shots because you do want to empower guys but i think you also need to hold guys accountable especially at this level for like some of the stakes Boston made are just really inexcusable. Well, and we've said many times, in order to blow a team out, so many times you just go and you keep on trying to score and then it becomes fractured

and it becomes one-on-one, whatever. And the way you blow somebody out is to focus on the defense event and just not letting and suffocating them. And that is the grand mistake I wrote down for Boston. I wrote down in the third quarter they just let them get their friggin swagger because they were throwing these frigging lobs to bam they're going to the back

I mean it's a damn layup line and and it's like and ones and then they threw canter in there and they cracked on him they cracked on him twice and it's like yo like you just you just woke these dudes up like they were already going to be fighting

but now they've got like this swagger, like this confidence, and they see your body language. Their heads are down. They're kind of walking back to their huddle, all kind of moping around. Nobody's really yelling. And it's like, bam's flexing, Jay Crowder's screaming. And like, it's like, oh boy. Like now, now these guys just got their confidence back and you got a big problem

on your hands. Because look, we just saw this with Denver and L.A. You could feel it in the third quarter, couldn't you? When you're watching that game, it was like, oh shit, they got their confidence. You are about to get steamrolled because. I tweeted around that time, like, Denver might actually do this L.O.L. Because it's like, oh, my God, you could feel what was happening. You could feel it.

And you could see their confidence building and the Clippers confidence just dissipating. Same thing in this game, really, in the third quarter. You can see it. Everybody like, you know, this is where, you know, you could be like we're just like, you know, armchair psychologist here. But like we're also human, we're also human beings who can read each other's emotions

and send somebody who might be having a down day. You can't always, but you could see it from Boston. You could see it from Miami once they started rolling and started really feeling themselves and it felt like they were moving so much quicker than Boston. Boston was thinking on every possession, overthinking, being indecisive.

Miami was just doing what they do. Boom, boom, boom, boom. Perfect rotation. perfect crisp passes. Then the maddest we've seen Brad Stevens. Yes. In that interview. Oh,

the interview. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That is seething Brad Stevens.

Yes. And he was like the nicest guy in the world. It's the truth. I mean, like Brad, you could tell he was pissed because Brad never looks like that. Brad is usually a cool cucumber, sometimes too cool, I would say. But he was definitely mad there. Maybe he should have even been angrier.

Maybe, maybe like, that's a situation. where it is time to yell and scream. With Miami, I feel like we're talking so much about Boston being so really disappointing tonight with their heart. Miami also like, dude, they got a lot of talent, man. I mean, Duncan Robinson.

Those two steals that Jimmy Butler had in game times? Yeah. I mean, this is like when it matters most stuff, you know, because he was not there all night. Yeah, I mean, the steals from Butler, obviously the clutch shots from Drudge, which we've mentioned that, but like just Duncan Robinson tonight, you know, only 18 points, but you got to treat him like he averages 30. You have to treat him like he's Clay Thompson. And the Celtics had a poor job of that as well for what it's worth. Then it gave him way too much airspace. 12 attempts is too many for Duncan Robinson. He can't let that happen. You know, bam out of bio, his effort on both

ends of the court. The offensive rebound that he had late in the game, even though Butler ended up turning it over. That offensive rebound sort of like summed up his entire night for me, just pure effort and his block after game one. It was like totally different type of play, but a similar clutch moment for him to gain a possession, even though Miami turned it over like I said, but just you know, Tyler Hero making some of the plays he did, Andre Aguador, J. Crowder hitting that, you know, three and one. Across the board, Miami's getting great contributions from everybody. This is a deep, like you said, earlier in the week before the series started, a deep team. And I have a lot of talent, man, that can raise to another level on particular nights.

Well, and about three or four weeks ago, we did a pod and I said, I think the most underrated guy in the whole league might be druggage. I mean, he's been like this. This has been happening with him. And obviously it takes something like this kind of a stage, I think, for people to notice even more. but they are 10 and 1 throughout this playoff run. They've only lost one game. They're 10 and 1, which is truly unbelievable. And he has been a star star.

Like, it's not uncommon. Like, what do you have tonight at the end? 25 probably. He had 25 points on 10 of 19 shooting 3.7.03, 5 assists, only two turnovers. But that's way more common than him like having 11 or, 15. Like he's getting these 20 plus games regularly. He did it against Milwaukee. He's doing it now against Boston. He has just been absolutely out of his mind. I was texting with one of my friends late in the game. And he mentioned how Miami has just gotten so much better, you know, and I feel like

you look at them in March, you look at them in July, and you look at them now in September. it feels like they've gotten better at each step, right? You know, from March to July, we really saw the chemistry build with Iguidala and Crowder. And then, you know, from July to September, this team, Drogich has clearly become that all-star player from a couple years ago. He's elevated back to that level. And that's a game changer for them, for sure. Tyler Hero seems to have gotten better since the season, you know, at least in my eyes. He had that slick ball handling maneuver tonight.

nasty move that he made. I mean, this team is better than we have seen them just a couple months ago, never mind, six months ago in March. And a lot of that, to your point, it has to do with Goren Drydrich. I mean, when you have a ball handler like that, what a difference. You know who

he reminds me of watching him? Is like the prime Genoblee. I knew you regard to Genobley. Really? He really does. It feels that way. You know, it's also. A spark plug. A spark plug who makes clutch plays. also nifty.

He does so much of it. It's not like, you know, it's footwork, you know, and that's so true of so many. That step back he had. That was great footwork there. Yeah. European players, you know, they beat you with angles and steps in many cases. They're not doing all the fancy, you know, crossovers and that kind of stuff as much, but they are beating you. You know, they know how to get their feet to a point where you can't turn properly.

like odd stuff to where people would always see Genoble and be like, how is he beating guys off the dribble so much? And if you ever watched his feet, it's unbelievable. And it's this, you know, he might hit a three, but he might drive all the way to the basket and take contact.

And he's got like that kind of chip on his shoulder kind of swagger to him. He's been great. And then let me ask you about this because this ran through my mind. Because we're going to pivot to the other series. You brought up Bam Auto Bio and how great he's been. Kev. I've been thinking about this a lot, especially after watching Denver and watching Montres Harold, Zubach, I mean, these guys were getting, it was pitiful, how they had nothing to deal with Yokic, right? Obviously, you're seeing it with Anthony Davis. There was nothing to deal with

Davis when they played against Houston. And, you know, Boston's kind of gone this route also, which has been a league-wide trend of, look, the wings are where it's at, and then just go on the cheap on your big guy, right? But we are seeing, you know, the two teams in the West and this team in the East all have guys that have to be dealt with, right? And Bam's a little different than the other two. But if you don't have a big guy, you're in real trouble against them. And obviously, out of bio is a linch pinned to their defense and zone defense that they play.

But, you know, we had gotten so far away from Biggs and everybody kind of devalued it. And now it just kind of feels like, you know, if I'm a Western Conference team, Yokic is 24. Like, I got to deal with this guy. I better have something that can deal with him. And Davis is no, you know, he's no elderly player. You can have to deal with him for the next five, six years. And out of bio, you're going to have to deal with him for a long time. And I've just wondered if not only is this the greatest thing ever for somebody like a James Wiseman,

but just league wide are we going to see, you know, more emphasis put on needing somebody big. Yeah, I mean, I think with the big man position, it's complicated. You could flip that the other way and, you know, and mention how, you know, 80 and yoke each other those outlier level players are talking about. Bam, Anabio was an investment the heat made as a mid to late first round draft pick still on a rookie deal. And of course, you want him at his high valley that he'll have once that deals up. But it was a low cost investment that allowed them to put packages together for a guy like

Jimmy Butler, you know, to have that cap space and a trading piece, you know, in Josh Richardson. For Boston, Daniel Tice, they've gotten to the Eastern Conference finals with a guy making $5 million with Ennis Canter with a rookie and Robert Williams. The clippers didn't make the U.S. Finals, but they had, you know, Zubots on a low salary. They had Harrell on a low salary. You can look at the Rockets that didn't have any bigs. You can look at the Lakers.

A.D. is the outlier, but McGee and Howard were really castaways on low salaries that have helped them be in this position. So it's like I think there's two extremes in that unless you have a star-level center, the way to go is cheap. But star level centers because big man are devalued in most other situations almost have more value

because other teams aren't built to stop those players. Do you know where I'm going with that? I'm curious about your thoughts there. I do. I'm just, well, and obviously, look, Embed is still a problem going forward, assuming they get a good coach or whatever. I just think that

maybe there's like a healthy in-between And I think, I don't know, we probably thought Tice is that. And Tice probably is that. But that you are going to have to, the same way that everybody looked and said, look, we're going to have to deal with Clay or we're going to have to deal with. And there's all these good wings and perimeter players. And that's kind of where it's at. And they can play your big off the floor.

Now the teams that have won that are there when it, like at the highest level, they got really good big guys. You know what I mean? And so there's part of me that thinks, I don't know, that maybe there's, it might just be a for instance with this season, or it might be, you better have somebody.

Because if you're going to be able to beat them, the same way it was like, you could either try to be like the Warriors or not. Like, you better have defenders that can D up on those guys. And so I guess, you can just zig and just count on that these teams aren't going to consistently be there year after year. But if you're soft on big guys, I don't know how you're going to be dealing with Davis

and Yokic and MBED and Atabio and like some of these guys that are, they create such an advantage for you. They really do. Sure. And you know, like you said, Atabio doesn't in a different type of way. It's not necessarily with IHRATO scoring. It's with playmaking from the perimeter that forces your big man out of the paint. And he can hit that mid-range now a little bit. Hey, I tell you this, just given what we saw and the way it played out, Houston sure could have used Capella because they couldn't do nothing. They were just, AD was just catching lobs over people.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. You know what I mean? They get that switch and it's like, okay, now he's got to score on Austin Rivers. Like, get out of here. Like PJ Tucker, like, I mean. You know, with Houston, I can't help but feel like they do just need to find a big, one of those lower cost guys, like not necessarily Daniel Tice, but that $5 to $10 million range. You know, you've got to have size to beat like a Yokach.

You have to have size to beat an AD. And that's what makes it, you know, I've been thinking a lot about this because I want to either do a video on it or maybe an article. I don't know what would be best. But I feel like the big man position, it really is both. It's both. And that's what makes somebody like James Wise and really so scary because if you're investing the number one pick him or even the number three pick. That's a lot of money for a rookie player who is,

there's no guarantee that he'll make an impact early on. You know, he's somebody who, as talented as he is, still slow decision maker, still at least last time we saw him, slow to read the floor in defense. So it's like with him, if you're a team, he's making $8 million on his rookie deal, that's more than a lot of starting centers. That's more than a lot of important rotation centers.

And that's a former high pick who, if he's solid, is on a trajectory to get a big, offer sheet for his second contract. And if you're on that path, that could be a bad road for you to go down where then you're paying, you know, an Andre Drummond, who is like very good center, but is not that great level center that we're talking about like AD or Yokic. You're going maybe down the path, even Gobert, who is awesome as he is. There's still something missing there that allows you to really feel like this is somebody you can rely on in the biggest games of the season in the playoffs because even if people talk about him getting played off the floor on

defense, I think that's a little bit overblown. What I think is sometimes overlooked is his lack of skill on offense. He's a rim runner. He throws down dunks, but he can't really post up for you. He can't pass on the short roll. He can't draw a double team on the post and pick you apart with a pass like we saw from Yolkich in that game seven. I mean, what were the clippers thinking, constantly doubling one of the most talented pastors in the history of basketball? football or of any sport for that matter. Hey, I'd tell you this, I'd rather have Gobeir than what the clippers were doing against him. Well, here, here's the thing, I need, I need the guy.

I need somebody, I'll give you two different instances, somebody that is not going to let the heat run a layup line in the third quarter. And I also need somebody that's not going to let Nicola Yokic grab 22 rebounds. Like, that's extreme. 22 in a game 7 is extreme. It's like all these guys we're talking about right now, they're all shot creators. Yoko Adabio and Adabio and Adi and their differing ways are all shot creators. Shot creation is still the most important skill in the playoffs. It is the most important skill.

When a defense is completely locked in, game planning, they know everything you want to do. You have to have players who can create a bucket for you. We talked about it with Butler. We talked about it with Drogich, but it's also true for all three of those bigs, A.D., Yogic, and bam. And so that's where, like, when it comes to drafting players or signing players or trading for players, whether they're small or big, you've got to have guys in the 2020 NBA that can create. As many of those guys that you can have on the floor at once, the better you are. And if those guys happen to be big, big as in, like, six-foot-six point guard, or big as in, big as in, big, you know, 260 pound forward, LeBron or big as in like seven feet, size is still the

preference. And if those guys are bigs who can create, like sign me up. That's the goal for teams when it comes to trying to build a winning basketball team now. Hey, Chris, before we move on, let's hear from today's sponsor. This episode of the mismatch is brought to you by Heineken. Heineken would like to remind you that it's time for seasonal bears again. That's right. If you thought a cold, Chris, summer Heineken was something,

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12 waffles and 12 hours. I'm Danny Heifitz. I'm Danny Kelly. And I'm Craig Horlbeck. We host the ring. or fantasy football show on the ringer podcast network to avoid eating 12 waffles in a waffle house follow the ringer fantasy football show on spotify and now back to the mismatch well i said i was going to use this discussion to pivot to the other series let's get to two bigs that do not create

which are javel mcgee and dwight howard and you know given that yokech is this uh massive star on the other team i think frank fogle was quoted as saying hey we're going back to playing with centers in the next one. That was, it was kind of extreme what was going on when we were playing against Houston. But we've got these centers. We used them as a rotation this year. How much do you think we really do see that? Because I know in your video, you even showed some of the problems that AD is able to create for Yokic.

And as I watched that, I thought, all right, well, if that's how they want to line this thing up, these fours for Denver, whoever it may be, they've got to make them pay for playing Dwight or playing Javel. And the question is going into this, do you think that's so? You never know with coaches and if they're being coy. Do you think we are going to see the Lakers with their, you know, center rotation? And Anthony Davis is a power forward. Frank Vogel seemed to say that that's what they're going to do.

He did. He suggested that during his press conference on Thursday. and that's going to be interesting to see how that goes because then with Denver, you know, you have Millsap, Jeremy Grant, Torrey Craig, really in that four role that you're talking about. And, you know, with the Lakers last round, I was wrong. I said they should stay with Biggs and try to, you know, just outrebound Houston, destroy them with size. They did it with 80 at the 5 alone. They didn't have to go small to do that.

They did it with Morris at the 5 when they needed to. Like, it didn't matter. And with Denver, it's different. And I think it's really more interesting when Lakers are on offense because that means Yokic doesn't have to defend AD now. Now Yokic probably, you know, stays on McGee or Howard, which means you're living with that. Otherwise, you'd have Yokic on a perimeter, actual perimeter player, and that could get him in trouble there. So I wonder with the Lakers if Vogel's just saying that because it feels like, you know, I could see them going either way. And maybe they'll try both things because they're not necessarily going to cut McGee and Howard out the rest of the playoffs, you know?

Well, the question is, do they play those guys on Yokic? Like, how much do we see Dwight Howard out on Nicolioch? I think we'll see more 80. You do? I would expect mostly AD. Yeah. I mean, obviously you can't get him in foul trouble. if you're using fouls on the guy.

You know what I mean? But Yokic will torch those dudes. He will torch them. I mean, it is odd that with Denver, you've got a little bit of this. Their two best players are not naturally easy to match up with, given the personnel, right? Like, who are you putting on Murray?

Pope? Rondo? Like, I mean... I mean, it's going to be different guys on Murray, I expect. Yeah. Well, and, and, And look, and I would have told you, I would have said, hey, if there was going to be a bad matchup for Murray, it's a team that's got Pat Beverly, Paul George, Kauai Leonard, like all

kinds of guys that you would think would be able to swallow them up. But Murray, he roasted all of them too. He gave them 25 in the first half and 40 in the game. So, I mean. He had that big night that he needed to have. We talked about. Yeah. That was really what they needed and they sure as hell got it from him.

Well, and it's pretty obvious that Frank Vogel, I mean, I watched your, like I said, the video you put out this week, if people could go back and watch where you did the conference preview, you know, you had that Vogel quote where he was talking about Rondo controlling the game and he's obviously going to play Rondo a lot of minutes. He just is. He's going to play Rondo a lot. And so you wonder how that matches up. I mean, Rondo did draw big defensive assignments against Houston. And maybe he will. Maybe, maybe playoff Rondo is out there, you know, Lord knows it's not going to be for lack of film study because he's maniacal about that, taking on Jamal Murray.

But nobody's done, that wasn't a, after what we saw from Murray the other night, it clearly wasn't just a one series wonder with him against Utah. No, definitely not. I mean,

he had some down games as well. We've talked about his strepiness and the areas of improvement, the last two rounds. But like he's still, guy that I think sometimes regardless of who you have on him, he can still go off. He's just a real, he's somebody who has a flamethrower jumper that sometimes is turned off. Like, he's just streaky so far in his career, even in college he was too. But like when that's on,

I don't know if it matters who you have on them, you know, like for the Lakers, you ask who defends him during the season, it was primarily Avery Bradley, you know, but you do also have Alex Crusoe. You also have Danny Green. You have KCP. They have all. to throw at him. But I wonder how much it really matters. And plus, I would guess the Lakers will be switching some screens as well or just switching matchups entirely. Like with Yokich, too.

Howard and McGee will defend him just to go back to that real quick. AD's not going to have him all the time. They're going to split time. And sometimes, again, there'll be a switch that'll occur to get Yokich on somebody else too. Well, I did want to mention this to you about the video because you have those clips of Rondo knocking down threes. and the off and and and and how good offensively he has been and this is super fascinating so in

in the course of a conversation i was having with former celtic former grizzly tony allen and for and he's big buddies with rondo has been in fact a lot of people he wore number nine in memphis as an homage to his friend right i remember rondo that he that he played with i've thought of that a long time but we were talking about Rondo today. And one of the things he mentioned to me, he says, if you watch him, I said, he's knocking down these threes now. And he goes, watch him. And he said, he's not jumping like he used to. And he said, you know who he shoots like now? He said, that's because he's been working with Jason Kidd. And you remember, this is so fascinating to me because Kid totally reinvented

himself. He was a nothing shooter. Right. He was a nothing shooter for so much of his career. He was the guy that you would run away from because you would give him all the space in the world. And then by the time it got to Dallas championship kid, he was like a real three point threat. And it was always like these set shots. It wasn't using what athleticism you had, right? And the whole I, and then I, so he said that and then I watched your video and I'll be damn. He's not. He's not jumping. He's not jumping the same way he used to, right? A lot of these

guys, they've been taught forever, you know, really use your legs, get your legs into your shot. And he's shooting like Jason Kidd did at the end of his career when kids started making all these shots. And kids on that bench, I haven't heard anybody talk about that. And I don't know if Tony talked about you're giving away a great story idea. I don't know. Yeah, right. There's a story idea for somebody. But with Rondo, Like he's shot 36% on catch and shoot threes since he was traded from Boston to Dallas. And that's not a great percentage. He's being left wide open.

I say that to say it's 36%. He's not like a 24% three point shooter on those open shots. He's not Roberson. You know, he's shooting 36%. So you're going to leave him open because you might live with that. But also it's not horrible. You can live with that from Rondo. And this year, to your point about maybe J.C.

and kid playing an impact here. He has shot over 39% during the season, shooting 40% now in the playoffs. Small sample size of like 80 total shots, I don't care. The point is, it's like he's above his averages and even if he drops down a little bit, that's really good from a guy that teams are leaving wide open to stop others. And you also know, I mean, anybody that plays with LeBron, you get to shoot open threes. It's just a matter Can you make them or not?

You're Kyle Corver and you shoot open threes next to LeBron You know, back in those cast days. Which makes it so befuddling And how horrible Danny Green has been I mean, Danny Green is the type of guy That I would thought you can't You're not going to be able to leave him open

For a corner three until he's 65 years old Well, turns out that's wrong He's another streaky shooter though too. You don't want to leave him open. On the other hand, it's not like it's a death nail like it was for the you know when you were playing against the spurs back in the day it was like every time if you were playing against the spurs a Danny green caught it in the corner you just started cursing because it's all right there's a bucket you know what I mean but now it's like she's a wheeze he may you never know where the ball's going I don't know what happened to him yeah it's sort of been recent too I mean still for the entire playoff shooting 39% from three which feels higher than I expected it to be. Way higher.

I know, right? I expected like 32%. But he's shooting it, this is to the point, shooting at 38.5% on total three-pointers in the playoffs. But it feels so bad because he's been really bad for quite a while now. Is it a low volume? It's 5.2 threes per game, 52 total 10 games. That's really low.

No, I mean, it's, it's close to a season average of 4.8. This is typically around what he does. Maybe he feels like more, but he's just on a really bad cold streak, and he's always had these, you know, ups and downs as a shooter. And for the Lakers, again, like, maybe he suddenly starts clicking again soon at the perfect time in the West Finals or the NBA Finals. There's X factors on all four of these teams. We talked about Hayward earlier, you know, Drogrich was the X factor for Miami really stepped up in the whole playoffs. right now for the Lakers, it's somebody like Danny Green

getting hot at the right time when he's been so cold lately. Does Denver have that X factor that gives them any chance against the Lakers? Jeremy Grant. I don't know. Do they?

Gary Harris? Jeremy Grant. Gary Harris is pretty good. Hey. I mean, Michael Porter we've talked about. No, that would be the story, right? Michael Porter,

because he is a matchup problem. But isn't the X factor for him on the defensive end? Like suddenly he becomes like a really good defender. That feels for sure. unrealistic, but he's going to have to defend LeBron at some point on a switch or early transition, you know, mismatch.

There's going to be situations where he's going to have to get in his way and stay in front of him and not over rely too much on help. I don't expect it, but Porter, if he can step up at all on defense, which he did a little bit in the last couple games for Denver, that would be big for them. Let me tell you what.

If there's one thing I'm done doing, it's betting against the nuggets. I've been told that on a show we did a couple of weeks ago, that when I said they had a 0.1% chance of moving on, that the point one was edited out. Now, I don't know who to play about that. You said zero. I said 0.1. And I guess through editing, he must have been edited out. Look, I gave him a 0% chance. I mean, I can't run away from it.

I thought, I thought there was no way in the world. Now, they deserve all the credit in the world. Don't let me, don't let me take away from that by telling you the clipper, I agree with you with the video you did that night. The, the clippers, that is the most embarrassing shit I've ever seen in my life for a team that has up 3-1, up 19 and 16, respectively. Like at any of those moments, my 0% looks great. And they've just vomited all over themselves until they end up losing the series. And it's truly one of the most remarkable stories in NBA history. And it feels like these guys have been around for a long time.

But I'm reading this story yesterday that Jokic is 24 years old. And Murray is 22 years old. And it's like, okay. Like, yeah, these guys are going to be around here for a long while now, right? And a perfect pairing too. You know, we talk about other teams with young teams, the Sixers, Simmons and Bede, how do they fit? There's no questions about the fit with Murray and Yokic. The only question you might have is like, can they be good enough defensively?

I mean, they're in the Western Conference finals right now. They're there. And Yolk has gotten better on the defensive end. Murray's playing harder than really he has. I mean, he's always plays hard. But he's defending better overall. And he has, I haven't seen him ever play. And this gets lost, Kev.

Guess what? They lost game seven last year. They've only lost game sevens with Yogan-Mari. They could have been to, they could have been to West Finals a year ago. Oh, I know. That's what I mean. Like, they've gone deep in series. They haven't gotten sweeps.

They haven't lost on five. They're good. I remember we came on and I said these, I think I tweeted out about it after they lost that came. I said, these are the scars. These are the scars, right? Like every team has to get them. You know, it doesn't happen right off the bat.

And they lost to a team that time when they lost to Portland, they had the scars. They'd taken their lumps. They'd taken their losses. They had experienced that heartbreak. And they were able to, you know, when it mattered most come through. But now it's almost like you think about that. And we think about the, you know, the scars that they're. developed last year by losing to Portland.

And it's like, look how comfortable they were when they were getting beat in series and even within the context of games. It's like once you go through that, now all of a sudden, we've been here before. And there is something to be said, especially in this day and age, about having a team that stays together, having that continuity, being able to run it back and recall we've been here before and this is this is what happens um whereas you know you got a team like uh like the clippers and it's just kind of thrown together they haven't been there before when all that shit started going wrong they're all looking at each other like they had nothing to fall back on

they have no scars collectively you know it was like this is the first time we've been through this and it was obviously a disaster what kawai said after the game does have some validity he said you know, basketball IQ many times over about, you know, the team not having enough basketball IQ. And part of that comes from chemistry. Part of that comes from players and who they are and what, you know, their limitations are. And for the clippers, that's going to be a priority moving forward is finding guys who just play smart basketball and make quick decisions on the floor and also do fit in terms, you know, in locker room and in the court. And for them, they're still going to be contenders. next year they still have a chance to win a championship and you mentioned that video i recorded um

you know it's on my instagram if you want to watch it just for reference you know i've ripped them after the game and it's always funny i i got comments that video saying you're trying to be like stephen a you're trying to be like skip all of a sudden why are you doing it's like dude we just saw the los angeles clippers come like they had a three one lead and they just collapsed completely collapsed. They folded. This is how sports fans react to things. Yeah. I mean, yeah. I mean, this is one of the most,

and I say this word in the way it literally means, it was incredible to see this team do that. I mean, oh my goodness. I'm going to tell you. I like the video, and I'm going to tell you, because people accuse me of that also, right? No, no. I don't care about,

I don't care about that. I was just saying that to put into perspective, like, this is how amazing it was that, like, you know, the person that you think is like calm about things as being like steamed. It's because it's deserving of that. It's insane what happened to them. It's because if you treat any, if you treat anything with passion,

it's now lumped into. Yeah. Right. Like we're not doing the friggin news here. We're talking about sports and which we get passionate about, right? Um, that being said,

uh, you think they, you think they just, Hey, you think they just run it back? You think they just say? I, I,

I wrote about this. this this week and you look at their team, you look at their position they're in. They can't trade any draft future first round draft picks. For the next decade. The next one they can trade is 2028, but you're not eligible to trade that

because of the seven year rule. They can't trade any first round picks. They have to resign. And you've seen pictures of my son will be in college the next time they can trade a first round pick. he's in fifth grade. He's in fifth grade.

My kid's going to be in college the next time the Clippers draft somebody in the first. What they're going to have to do if they want to get, you know, picks, they're going to buy them. Like, they're going to better hope some teams are willing to sell first or sell seconds with, you know, money problems with the pandemic or whatever these billionaire problems type of really. Like, come on, is that a problem for a billionaire owning a team that you're going to sell a first-round draft pick that could turn it to the Tyler here? that could turn it to Jimmy Butler. I mean, what are you doing here? You can't trade those first round picks. How many first rounders could you get back for Paul George now?

Oh, goodness. Not seven. If you called Sam Presti back, and he said, how many of those? We'll give it back to you. How many? Can we get Gilges or Gallo? No.

Maybe Gallo and a pick. What if he'd be fun? Sign and trade with Gallo. I don't know, man. But the clippers, they're going to be in good shape. I mean, they're in all likelihood going to run something back that looks similar to what we've seen this last year. I can't imagine it looking dramatically different just because of the lack of picks to make notable moves, the lack of potentially available cap space, and just the fact that they are a really good team.

You know, they're a really good team. They just are. And Doc might not be a great coach. I don't think he is. You know, this is his sixth time. He's coached a team that has blown a 3-1 or 3-2 lead. a third time for a 3-1 lead. He's always been somebody who's slow to make adjustments or too stubborn to make adjustments.

And Doc is a good coach. And he's been important to the Clippers franchise for a lot of reasons. And I don't see them making a change there. I saw some report this week that they're not expected to make any change there. It's hard to find good coaching and Doc's good coach. So I have a hard time seeing the Clippers making many big changes this offseason. And they'll be back in it. They better have that chemistry.

I know nothing about their situation in depth, right? I did cover Jerry West while he was in Memphis for some time. And I will tell you, I don't know, I'd imagine that he has an immense amount of power and say still to this day. And I would then guess that they will trade Paul George. Just knowing him and knowing what he would have been. like watching that playoff series and watching that close out game, he won't be

able to, he won't be able to look at him. I'm serious. Like he will, he's good. But there's the Kauai factor though. There's the Kauai factor. Kauai only signed there because they, well, I mean, unless he was just leveraging himself into getting a star and he would have went

there anywhere. But like, it appears that he only signed there because I got George. I understand. But I bet if you went to talk to Kauai today, he'd be just fine. You might be right. You know what? You could be right.

And that's like what, you know, with Doc too, if Kawhi says, yeah, Doc is the coach, he's the coach. If Kawhi says, you know, I've played for pop for years, you know, I played with Nick Nurse, we can do better. Then the front office and Ballmer probably feel empowered to make what would be a difficult move. Like I said, Doc is a good coach, a good man and has been super important to that franchise, staring through the Sterling era, running the front office for part of the part of. the time, you know, all the activism now. He's a good coach and a good man. That's a tough decision to make. But if that were to happen with Doc or Paul George, if Kauai goes to Jerry Weston, is like, I made a mistake here. We should have kept Shea. We should have kept those picks because, you know, PG as good as he is, as great as he is as a player. He's not

that guy. If Kauai were to say that, that has a lot of power. Well, they would say, if somebody, especially now when emotions are, I would say we're not winning. with that guy. Guess what? We're going to be in a game seven again when it matters most. This guy was hitting the side of the backboard. That has nothing to do with talent. Side of the backboard.

That guy could shoot that shot, Kevin, 1,500 times and never hit the side of the backboard. You never see it unless it's like somebody falling out of bounds or he's an open three is hitting the side of the backboard. That's just, that's all in between your ears, all of it, if you're hitting the side of the back for when you're that talented. This guy's a 10-time All-Star, whatever he is. The guy was third in MVP voting a couple of years ago.

Last year. Was it last year? I mean, all NBA teams and whatever. And it's like, I don't know, man. Well, push game to shove. I do think it's also worth noting, you know, with these, you know, struggles we're talking about. Paul George did say, you know, in mid or late August that he feels like he's been dealing

with anxiety and depression inside the bubble, you know, with all the pressure, being away, being a 400 square foot room. And this is a factor that can influence the play of somebody. And if you're Kauai, you know, if you're that front office, you also have to be, you know, sympathetic to how others are failing and understand that. And with Paul George, maybe that plays a role into it. But ultimately for the Clippers, you know, from a pure basketball standpoint throughout the season and in the playoffs, you know, in both circumstances, sometimes.

it did feel like maybe he's not exactly what Kauai needs or maybe it's not even Paul George. I mean, it could just be the surrounding circumstances. Maybe you're looking at Lou Will and Harold and thinking, oh, Paul George could be better without them. You know, it could be something else in the team.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And for, you know, I think when Kauai mentioned the basketball IQ part, you know, it wasn't any one player. It wasn't just Harold, just wasn't Lou Will. Kauai made mistakes himself for that matter. But it did often feel like time, you know, times to me, that was the big factor.

This team just wasn't making smart plays. They weren't rotating properly. Harold often looked lost. Lou Will wasn't calling out rotations or switches often times. A lot of issues there. Landry Schammett just got destroyed anytime he was on the floor. And part of the time, you know, Paul George and Kauai themselves weren't at the level that you expect from all defensive players.

At times, they were making mistakes as well. And it didn't feel like this was a connected unit off the court. it felt like that on the court. It clearly looked like that. And they got to find that chemistry because they're not, I mean, you mentioned Jerry West. He's probably pissed, but I don't see them trading Paul George. That would really shock me.

It just would, considering the whole circumstances, you know, in the bubble from Kauai's desire to have him. But they got to get it right. I just know. I feel they're going to make more moves than I think they can. I only say this because I know how much he values competitors. and I know that if you value competitors, that whole Paul George experience

just had to drive you absolutely crazy and you'd say, I'd rather have somebody else. I'd rather have somebody else that I can at least know he's going to show up to the fight because this guy didn't even show up to the fight for us. And I've seen enough, you know what I mean?

Like I feel like that's how he views basketball. Maybe I'm wrong about that. And the quote that bothered me from that game, and I put this on my column that I wrote this week and last paragraph. I think internally, we always felt this was not a championship or bust year for us. And that was Paul George who said that. That's crazy.

He said we always felt this was not a championship or bust year for us. Time is short, dude. Time is short. It's always a championship or bust year when you have a roster like this. Next year, Lakers aren't going anywhere. Nuggets are just getting better. Mavericks are just getting better. And guess what?

the Golden State Warriors are going to have Stefan Curry and Clay Thompson back on their team with Draymond Green and the number two pick. And you get it's not getting any easier. Look and look at all these non-playoff teams like like Portland like Memphis like New Orleans like they're all on the come up.

And Minnesota is going to end up becoming better. Sacramento's going to I mean we got bingo. We got bingo. I mean it's a championship or bust year and you've missed the opportunity. you're both in your prime you're all NBA players in your prime what are you trying to win like you're not building here like what are you building for like for three three years down the road you know when you guys are like when when when there's now a new set of NBA superstars

like come on man this is your time and by the way you know this quote what I think our criticism here he might be saying we as in the collectively we as and there were guys in the locker room who felt that way. May not have necessarily been himself, though, you know, he may have also meant himself. But whoever it was, you can't win with that mentality. You can't win, you won't win, you'll never win, because you look at those other teams on the other side, they are having that championship or bust mentality, all of them who were left, all four of them. We criticize the Celtics tonight and praised the heat for just really that championship mentality.

Celtics usually are better than what we saw tonight. Lakers have that. The Nuggets have that to come back from down three, one, twice in a row. That shit is crazy, man. Two, three to one comebacks in a row when there's only been 13 of those in NBA history. Oh, my goodness. That is just crazy. There used to be a guy I knew that, like, when an athlete would say that,

what he would say, you know, we, you know, he would like speak for the team, but it didn't feel like he was speaking for the team. he would say, what, you got a mouse in your, you got a mouse in your pocket? Me and the mouse in my pocket didn't feel like we should win a championship this year. Yeah, the royal we, yes. Yeah, the royal we. We'll wrap this up with the way we started it, which is Gary Washburn, who's down in the bubble covering the Celtics, who had reported about. Number one, Jetty Osmond fan in the league, Gary Washburn.

Only Gary knows this inside joke, and I don't even know if he listens to the podcast. Well, you had him reporting that Marcus Smart was freaking out. This was mayhem in the Celtics locker room. And he closes it out tonight by saying some players, including Marcus Smart, have left. Smart declined to speak with the media. The Celtics will not practice tomorrow. Wow. Which is way uncommon in the middle of a playoff series where you need to install a zone offense.

before the next game. It would be nice to install, use that practice time. It would be, they could actually use that practice time to install a zone offense. I wonder if somebody got their ass beat. I want the whole story on this, right? I wonder, I wonder if Brad Stevens is going to have this whole film session, like 10 hours in the film room. This is what we got to do to beat zone defense. Go out there tomorrow and do this, you know, like that type of thing.

Because they do need the film time too. looking at their low effort plays, looking at the times they didn't box out guys, looking at the times they missed rotations, looking at what they did wrong against Zone against Toronto and Miami. They got to have really a deep dive, you know, so beating Zone Defense 100 course, get the fundamentals down because they don't even have those. Kev, what if they show up this weekend for game three and Brad Stevens has a Kevin O'Connor beard. What if he just,

what if he just, he just doesn't shave. He doesn't, he says, I'm not shaving until we win a game. Oh, goodness. Hey,

I saw, never lose again. Hey, I'll tell you this, when I clicked on those tweets, and you never know what is representative, but you, you know that franchise and have lived up in Massachusetts for your whole life.

Are fans on his ass? It feels like fans. are on his ass, Brad Stevens. And it feels odd because even like that smart was screaming and yelling whatever when I, like the first time I clicked the tweet, I could see like the first several responses. And it was like good.

I wish our coach would. Good. I wish our coach would. Good that somebody's holding somebody accountable. Since Brad won't. It's like, whoa now. Yeah, there's definitely. There definitely is a lot of that.

Yeah. From self-as fans for sure. And I would argue sometimes rightfully so. One of my made problems with Brad. I remember, I was writing for Celtics blog at the time they traded for him, and I wrote an article saying, like, Brad Stevens is the NBA's next great head coach. And I think he is a great coach. But one of the flaws that I think he's always had is, I mentioned this earlier.

Empowering players, you know, you want to do that. But also, you can't allow Daniel Tice to isolate against Bam out of bio with like 12 seconds off from the shop. Drive against him. you can't allow that, you know? And it's the type of thing like, no, regardless of the team, you know, sometimes even during like the Isaiah Thomas days, the year before he really blew up, I believe I was still in Celtics blog that year. And I remember saying, like, how are they not feeding this guy the ball way more? You know, there's always issues there. And I feel that now.

And the other side of it is exactly what you're mentioning. Sometimes I feel like he does need to stomp his foot down or sometimes adjustments can be a little bit too slow. low. We've seen that as well. And with zone, it's kind of shocking that a college coach it doesn't do it. But one of the challenges is, though, is Tyson's passing. It's not what needs to be to put a guy in the middle of that zone. Pick it apart. They obviously should be much better against it. But how many times have we seen this, especially even in the NCAA tournament, where some team ran up against Syracuse. And I remember this happened with the mile I think Danzel Bridges, Jaron Jackson Jr. team from Michigan State.

I think Denzel Valentine's team also same thing. A bunch of these teams. There was just all kinds of teams throughout the years. Indiana, that team that had Oladipo and Cody Zeller on it, they ran into his own. And just like, it's like, bro, you've had a week to prepare for this. And if he's got those long interchangeable defenders, it's just. you're not playing the same basketball that you've played all year. And you can say they're professionals,

they should be able to attack this. But it's easier said than done to flash somebody to the middle. Like it's all foreign because that's not how you've played all year. And it really is a hell of a weapon to have, man. It is a hell of a weapon to have, especially when you've got the players they can play it. And they've got long, tough guys. I wonder, you know, just one more note on the zone.

One last note. I wonder if we'll see more Grant Williams. Because Grant Williams is that type of big, even though he's only six foot six, PJ Tucker size, you know, not as muscular, but similar height. He can pass the ball and he can be versatile for you on defense. You can switch more pick and rolls with him, which could lead to, you know, bam out of a bion not dunking with nobody around him, which was an embarrassment tonight from Boston's defense.

And on the offensive end, you can stick him in the middle. middle of the zone and better rely on him to make the right play than you can with Daniel Tyson or you can't play him on defense either. Maybe that's one solution, though that brings risk with offensive boards. You mentioned Lakers, you know, just, you know, outrebounding, scoring over the Rockets. I mean, I mean, Houston was small. Boston would be similarly small if they were to try that. Like, there's no clear solution here either for Brad Stevens. But they got to figure that out. They put Cantor's ass in. And he got put on two posters in like the first minute he put him in the second half when he put him in there after Tice had gotten banged on or whatever.

Oh, my God. That was just miserable. The other thing. One last thing. How about them saying, we talked about their bench. They don't use Grant. Wanamaker still comes off their bench, whatever. I had no idea Brad Wanamaker was the oldest player of the Celtics until they mentioned it on the broadcast.

I was like, what the hell? he says 31. It's pretty funny. Yeah, it's a young team. Brad Watermaker, but I mean, Brad Watermaker just showed up.

What's he been doing for the last 10 years? He's playing overseas. I know. I know. But 10 years, 10 years overseas and then showing up in the Eastern Conference finals, getting minutes is. Daniel Tyson,

another long time bet they played for the same coach at one point as well, Wanamaker. Oh, wow. At different times, but same coach. Kind of a pipeline there. But yeah,

with Boston, man, they better figure out that zone or this series is over. It's over unless they figure out the zone. All right. Last thing, because you know them and you've been in their locker room and you kind of, you've interviewed all those guys. You know those guys. How do you think Tatum and Brown respond to the smart thing tonight? I think they respond well. They're both competitors. They're both competitors for sure. Are they buddies? Yeah, I mean, yeah, they're buddies. I mean, people were talking about Janeland Brown shouting at Tatum for not passing the ball at one point, but they'd get the ball passed to him a second.

later i mean i don't i don't read too much into stuff like that people yell at each other it happens on any single team whether you're playing you know in the nba you know eastern conference files you're playing war zone like i'm going to do after we record sometimes you got you got to raise your voice to get the team going and that's true for everybody you got to have that yeah but there are you know this you and i can you and i can yell at each other and then everything's fine there's some guys that when they yell at each other, they end up getting very mad. You know what I mean? And that's why I asked you, will they be able to take it?

I mean, you also never know. If Marcus Smart started MF and these guys, I wonder how they react. It goes one way or the other. It either breaks your team apart or it brings you together. I mean, there's only, that's what's going to happen. They're either going to fracture or they're going to come together. But it had to happen either way. Here's the problem.

even if they come together, they still might get beat. Miami's freaking good. I would give them a zero percent chance of coming back. Oh, good. Celtics fans love to hear that. That's for freaking sure, man. I'm kidding. You know, look, this would be nice to be able to go back home to try to tie up the series,

but they go back to the same bubble to try to tie up the series. I don't think the Celtics are dead yet. I don't. No, they're not dead. They're not dead, but you know, you don't like what you've seen against the zone, that's for sure. And zone defense, man, it is the coolest thing that zone defense, you know, a high school defense, a junk defense, you know, people have trash zone for a long time. It is so awesome to see zone having a valuable role across the board in the postseason. You know, with really almost every team at least once doing it and often doing it very effectively just as a curveball.

It's a box of switching from Orthodox to Southpaw. It changes things up. It makes the offense sink. And I mean, it's so fun to watch this. Well, when we next speak, we will have seen the Western Conference finals a little. We will know what is become of this Boston Celtics Miami series. I can't wait. This is going to be a fun weekend.

And I honestly do not have a great gauge of what's going to happen in either of them. I don't know what's going to happen in a Lakers, Denver, matchup and what that's going to look like. And certainly, as we said, this can go one or two ways with the Boston thing after a big blowup in the locker room tonight. You're either going to see a team that doesn't fulfill destiny and fractures out and changes get made in the offseason or you're going to see a team that rallies, you know? Yeah. I mean, it's going to be funny. Even if they lose that series, they got a rally.

They got to come back with hard. Thanks to producer Sasha as always and thanks to everybody for listening to another episode of The Mismatch. We will talk to you on Tuesday.